Kerry Rea (Bonner, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations. Will the Deputy Prime Minister outline to the House what the government is doing in response to job losses?

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for her question. I know that she is deeply concerned about this issue and, like me and other members in this parliament, she would have been very, very disappointed to hear today the news from Pacific Brands and to see that 1,850 workers around the country, through no fault of their own, are losing their jobs.

What we can do, faced with the global financial crisis and global recession bearing down on our economy, is take decisive action to do three things. Firstly, we can stabilise financial markets—action that the government have taken. Secondly, we can act to stimulate the economy, which is what the government did through our Economic Security Strategy, through our Nation Building and Jobs Plan and through our investment in infrastructure, including our investments in local infrastructure through local governments. As part of the Nation Building and Jobs Plan, we have made a historic and unprecedented investment in schools right around the country in order to bring those schools into the 21st century and to provide the standards that Australians want for their children when they are being educated. At the same time we have taken the opportunity to support jobs right around the nation in the communities in which those schools are located.

The third thing government can do is give a helping hand to those who find themselves redundant in these difficult days, as the global financial crisis and the global recession bear down on the Australian economy. The government have announced in recent days a number of practical measures that we believe will make a difference for some Australians in these circumstances. Most particularly, we announced new incentive payments. For those apprentices who find themselves without a job, having part way completed their apprenticeship, there are new incentive payments to assist them to get an opportunity with a new employer or a group training organisation in order to complete their apprenticeship. There are also new resources available to registered training organisations to help out-of-trade apprentices complete their apprenticeships. Then yesterday, with the Prime Minister and the Minister for Employment Participation, we announced new investments in giving a helping hand to Australians who are made redundant, including a nearly $300 million investment in personalised and intensive assistance for those Australians who are made redundant, and an investment in 10,000 new training places for redundant workers. This brings to a total of 711,000 the productivity places available to help people skill and reskill. They can find opportunities in those parts of the economy that still need skilled labour and, when the economy moves into growth, we will not see the same cycle that we have seen in the past where, in economic downturn, skilling and training slows and then, when the economy grows, the lack of skilled labour itself becomes a capacity constraint and prevents the economy growing as quickly as it otherwise could.

For the individuals involved, most particularly the 1,850 workers who heard this difficult news today about Pacific Brands, we understand that they would be feeling hurt and distressed. Obviously, we will be there with the personalised and intensive assistance to work with them. We have been very clear that there will be other days on which we hear this kind of distressing news—the news that we heard today—as the global financial crisis and global recession bear down on our economy. But the government will continue to take decisive action as necessary to support those individuals and to cushion our economy against the full effects of the global financial crisis and global recession.